


Time Will Test its Teeth On Us

by TSerpillum



Series: The Silvery Strands of a Spider's Web - Reincarnation AU [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Denial of Feelings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 22:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17989514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TSerpillum/pseuds/TSerpillum
Summary: His voice is harsher than he intends, but there is anger seeping through him, anger and something else he can’t quite pinpoint.Erwin refuses to talk.Levi refuses to back off.





	Time Will Test its Teeth On Us

**Author's Note:**

> A sidestory to the Reincarnation AU I have, written to the prompt Grapholgnia - The urge to stare at obscene pictures. Violent war photographs are mentioned, so please be careful!  
> As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

It’s a single glance he risked. Nevertheless, it was enough to lure him into Erwin’s bedroom against all his selfimposed prohibitions. Levi steps into forbidden territory, aware of the lack of right on the intimacy it offers, the warmth and the stream of fondest memories it evokes.

Yet he’s not here to hunt them down and resurrect them in order to have something to hold onto when times get tough. To be honest, they do so frequently, and he’d be a fool to refuse this little extra he fetched for himself. But his thoughts are running wild again, clashing against each other, so it takes him a moment longer to compose again and make sense of what he’s seeing.

The deep blue sheets didn’t snap him out of his well trained on selfcontrol. Perhaps the bastard counted on that when he left his bedroom door open for that one crack, inviting him silently in to… what? Give in to the ache? To drop his pants and his basic human decency to claim what he may not have? He’s fucked up once, and if the patterns continue their doing, he’ll fuck up once again.

It’s the extent of his mistakes that made him succumb. There they stand, mocking him from the pinboard occupying the most of the wall above Erwin’s desk; a warning enough to just leave Erwin be despite his own wishes.

Levi stands and stares at the black and white photographs, their borders overlapping and the pins keeping them in place resembling a bullet wound each. The chill snakes down his spine and he has to swallow the foul taste spreading in his mouth, blaming it on the sugar he consumed for this evening.

Some of the photos were labelled, sparking Levi’s curiosity in a sick way. He flicks the desk lamp on, taking in the now illuminated view.

All the photos had one thing in common: they were war themed and the labels were written in the same hasty handwriting Erwin wrote in whenever he drafted his strategies late at night when sleep couldn’t find him.

His fingers curl into tight fists.

  * _The Napalm Girl_ , Vietnam War, 1972;
  * _Madness grips a shell shook soldier_ , Battle of Somme, 1916;
  * _Thekla concentration subcamp_ , Germany, 1945;
  * _Imprisoned German soldier_ , Battle of Kursk, 1943.



With a quick glance over the rest, Levi sees they are in no particular chronological order, but the motives are the same. Suffering, cruelty and death.

The wave of sorrow crashes down on Levi, twisting his guts with its power, threatening to drown him.

“What the fuck, Erwin?”, he whispers in defeat, suddenly aware of his presence in the doorframe.

A safe distance.

“Seems like it’s time to get them oiled again”, motioning to the door, he offers apologetically as if it was him who disturbed Levi’s privacy and not the opposite.

“Yeah, and get this off the wall.”

His voice is harsher than he intends, but there is anger seeping through him, anger and something else he can’t quite pinpoint.

Erwin refuses to talk.

Levi refuses to back off.

“Is this what you do in your free time?”

“I’m trying to get my masters in history”, Erwin shrugs casually, as if it was explanation enough. For someone else perhaps, but not for Levi.

“Sure”, he barks, knitting his arms over his chest in obvious disdain.

Erwin sighs in surrender, then slumps forward for the tiniest nuance, but it doesn’t escape Levi’s corner of eye. The change of his expression doesn’t either as he takes a step forward – uncertain but firm – to close the distance between them. It’s as if Levi can see the bolo tie resting between his collar bones, a sharpness graces the youthly rounded cheeks, and the gear strap across his chest is released, in need for more air, so Levi’s hand travels to his throat to loosen the non-existent cravat.  Not finding it, he steps back, afraid he’ll reach out to him, touch him, and change everything irreversibly.

Just like back then.

Instead Erwin stares above his head, right at the photos, and taking a few more silent breaths, speaks.

“That’s the reality of war, Levi. This is the immeasurable suffering some humans can bring upon the world.”

“Terrible bedroom deco idea. No wonder you never get laid”, he returns drily, secretly hoping to stop Erwin from the course he’s taken. 

His humor is still terrible, however the small chuckle that escapes him is worth it. Levi certainly doesn’t mind appearing a fool to have Erwin like this, covering his mouth to dim the sound not to wake Mike and Hange up. 

He shakes his head to compose himself again.

“The one wouldn’t mind, I believe”, he smiles warily then.

Levi buries his hands as deep as his skinny jeans pockets allow.

“You believe in fairytales?”

“I believe in titans, so perhaps that counts.”

“What’s the fucking point of this, Erwin?”, Levi urges, not in the mood for any more games tonight, his sharp gaze indication enough. He demands of him to bare himself entirely, and Erwin struggles to do so after all the time Levi has rejected him, when he fought for Levi, trying to break through his walls higher and firmer than Maria, Rose and Sina together.

And now he’s on the other end of it.

“We can’t escape our pasts, Levi. We can’t escape our past selves, our deeds and their consequences”, he begins in low whispers, carefully disarming himself. Levi clenches his jaw immediately, looking away to the dust in the corner. “I refuse to escape mine. I sent so many soldiers – no, children – to their deaths. Tears, screams, even madness – all due to my command.”

Their eyes skim over the photos, and Levi notices the numerous photos of children caught up in a war, forced to participate in because do they really have a choice? They would have died one way or another.

“And those people”, Levi raises his chin to the pinboard, “couldn’t have escaped their presents, Erwin. If you didn’t command your soldiers back then, the titans would have come for them, just like they did in Shiganshina, in Trost, in and outside the Walls. All those people made a difference. All our soldiers did so as well, Erwin.”

It’s hard not to choke on his own hypocrisy, too hard not to hate himself, but those words are the least he can give Erwin after all that’s been. It’s the least Levi can do.

 “It’s better to go down fighting than die like a pitiful worm, remember?”

Erwin blinks at him, eyes wide in disbelief, and Levi risks a small upturn of his mouth.

“So you still agree?”

The response is immediate, unwavering. “’f course.”

“And Mike and Hange? What about all the rest?”

“Considering they are passed out on your living room floor, you can draw your own conclusions.”

On Levi’s cue, Erwin looked at the door where Mike’s snoring reached them through, the comfortable and relaxing kind he knew ever since their trainee days. It got only interrupted by a slight shuffling, surely Hange cuddling closer into him in search for his warmth, and then he resumed.

Erwin’s lips curled into a little smile.

“It could have been worse, you know”, he looks right into Levi’s eyes, “I could have committed all those atrocities by myself. Like this”, he points at a photo of an infant impaled on a bayonet, and Levi shudders at the sight.  _Nanking massacre, 1938_ , the label says. “Maybe if I found myself in another era, in another time, maybe that could have been done by my command.”

“But you’re not such a man, Erwin, and we both know that”, Levi stops him, snaps him out of the haze so many nightmare filled nights brought upon him, dragging him into a pit that’s so hard to crawl out of. 

Levi’s no stranger to the feeling either, Erwin reads it from his eyes, and the last barrier breaks down.

“I can always count on you, can’t I, Levi? Although I have no idea what you have been through after you… after…”,  _you saved me_ , he wants to say, but it sounds too dramatic and Erwin knows it will scare Levi off. Lips trembling for the right words a few times but unable to form them, he returns to the most earnest ones he has told him in their final moments together of their last life. 

“Thank you, Levi. Thank you for everything.”

The honesty of his words, the fingers slowly reaching for him, and his eyes so soft and affectionate, make Levi run in self-loathing, in shame and in fear. He runs out of his place as all the times before in this life, cursing himself for ever stepping into it, running as long as his knees can hold him, but never quite far enough. Erwin will always be at his heels, both know that, always there for Levi to succumb to his selfishness and fail Erwin once anew.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this far!  
> Find me on  
> [tumblr](https://tserpillum.tumblr.com/).


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